Author Archives: yana.gleyzer

In a recent article about one week ago, Facebook encountered a privacy breach. It was encouraged that all account users change their passwords yet again. According to the United States Internet Security Firm Symantec, around 100,000 Facebook applications were possibly affected by the breach. If Facebook users accounts were effected, third parties could very easily access accounts, post photos and comments on profiles and view or keep track of personal information.

The only safety zone that account holders may fall into is that most of these third parties that try to get personal information out of users must first get approved by the user. Users have to give these third party applications their permission to access information in their account. Such approvals include games, surveys, online gifts, etc. According to Symantec, Facebook made the necessary changes to prevent future leaks, but users should still change their passwords in order to prevent third parties from using the breach to access accounts.

I recently read an article on CNN.com that gave advice for the best possible passwords one might choose to use so that their chances of security breaches decrease. The advice given was to take any random long sentence and only use the first letter of each word. By doing so, hackers will find it impossible to break through your security code. The way they find passwords is by running every single word through some data base and using every possible option. Take for instance the passowrd “Iltgtc&pwmf.” You would think that it’s impossible to memorize such a thing, but if you convert it back into its original sentence “I love to go to concerts & parties with my friends,” you’d never forget it and you will never be a victim of hackers.

Check out the article link. I found it very useful! http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-06/tech/durgahee.password.security_1_keepass-common-passwords-1password?_s=PM:TECH

I’ve always heard the term facial recognition but never really thought too much into it. Recently I’ve been hearing more and more talk of it so decided to look further into this technology, especially since privacy is at a rapid decrease. Facial recognition is a computer application for automatically identifying or verifying a person from a digital image or a video frame from a video source. One of the ways to do this is by comparing selected facial features from the image and a facial database (wikipedia.com).

The executive chairman of Google warned governments against facial recognition technology.  He said it’s “too creepy” even for Google. Talk about violation of privacy. Worst off is that it is used by many social media companies. Facebook uses facial recognition programs, which allow users to tag photos of people that are uploaded to the site. iPhone 4 has a very unique way of unlocking your cell phone. Instead of typing in a password, what the phone has is the facial recognition software. I watched a small preview of it on youtube, and I have to say.. it’s pretty impressive. At least this phone will give you the option of either entering the security code or letting the phone recognize your facial features in order to unlock. Here’s a short video clip link for anyone interested. It definitely caught my attention. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUmCfe7xqBg

With all these advancements going on, I can only image what’s to come in the next 5 to 10 years.

I was recently web browsing through random online news that deals with online privacy and came upon an interesting website created by someone who is not a supporter of corporate media. The website is interestingly called FUsocialmedia.com; quite creative. It was apparently started by an online social media entrepreneur and the site is now taking over his life. So much so that his wife (or x-wife) started her own tweets about how much she hates social media because it took over her life and her marriage. She even has her own Twitter account following… http://twitter.com/#!/fusocialmedia and is not a fan!

The website’s latest post discusses how Google, Twitter, Skype and Facebook recently came together to oppose a privacy bill. The privacy bill was introduced by a California State Senator and would force sites to explain privacy settings in a very clear cut way without confusion. The senator believes that social media companies trick people into sharing too much private information. The bill is called Social Networking Privacy Act SB 242 (http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/sen/sb_0201-0250/sb_242_bill_20110502_amended_sen_v98.html) and would require a notice before users hand over their personal information to a site. According to this recent news article, the bill would also grant parents the right to request photos or text be removed from any of their children’s social networking pages within 48 hours. A $10,000 fine would be issued for each violation.

To any online media user this bill sounds very logical and makes common sense, but not to social media giants. Google, Twitter, Skype and Facebook claim that this bill would damage business for the California technology sector by raising costs and heavily limiting growth potential of social networking sites, as well as violate the Constitution based on freedom of speech rights.

If you ask me, these social media giants are trying to protect themselves from something that should have already been approved into action.

Twitter is facing new legal actions by an anonymous football player after discovering that many tweeters have claimed to reveal the name of the player who allegedly had an affair with model Imogen Thomas. This is said to be the first action against Twitter and its users. The defendant is desperately trying to keep his identity a secret, so much so that his defense name is listed as “persons unknown”. The football player’s attorneys are claiming that Twitter is responsible for the publication of that information. The popularity of these tweets has very quickly attracted over a 100,000 followers.

Removing tweets would obviously be the best remedy in resolving these little mishaps but Twitter will only remove spam and illegal tweets. Others that have further looked into this situation have mentioned that there’s very little chance that the lawsuit will prevail.

At the time that this article was posted, the London-based law firm representing the footballer had not returned a request for comment. I wonder why, maybe it’s due to the fact that their chance of winning is slim to none. Taking these tweets to heart is silly. Everyone has a right to comment or tweet, as long as it’s not illegal. Now a days messing around with a model is just like going about any average day. So if a random person feels like starting some rumor, best thing to do is ignore! Now this wise footballer is digging a bigger hole simply by making this a public issue.

I recently came about an interesting news video from Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster. The news clip was about Sony and its unfortunate data breach. What caught my attention initially though was the idea that various companies allow employees to log into Play Station online in order to compete against each other, chat and watch movies! This is such a common trend that as many as 77 million users have signed up for the service. Now that’s a fun and modern work day interaction technique. Here’s where it gets tricky… in order to use this service, people are very open to providing their names, passwords, birthdays, addresses and even credit card information on Sony servers. Day after day we all give a bit of our information away without wondering what the possible consequences may be. We expose ourselves to hackers on a daily basis, and unfortunately for Sony Play Station online users, they fell right into the trap. Hackers were able to get into the system and use the data that’s now easily accessible to them. This breach is being called the “largest theft of personal data on record.” What makes me more and more hesitant about revealing personal information is the fact that Sony now admits to having known about this breach yet hadn’t advised users until a week later. So as safe as we all may think we are, I would highly reconsider giving away such personal information, even if it is a so called “trusted” corporation such as Sony.

News link.. http://mediacenter.dw-world.de/english/video/#!/126215/Sony_admits_huge_data_breach